About

#TheBanksAreOutOfMoney or The Banks Are Out Of Money refers to a viral hashtag and hoax that gained traction online in early April 2025. The hashtag jokingly encouraged people to trigger a bank run, where people rush to withdraw their money from their banks, increasing the potential for bank failure and causing widespread economic turmoil. Jokes about how "The Banks Are Out Of Money" continued to spread after Donald Trump's administration announced reciprocal tariffs that caused the global stock market to fall in early April 2025.

Origin

A bank run occurs when a large number of account owners withdraw their money from a bank at the same time due to fears that the institution will run out of money. Since banks typically hold only a fraction of deposits in reserve, mass withdrawals can cause liquidity crises, potentially leading to bank failure. The most recent major U.S. bank run occurred in March 2023, when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed after rapid withdrawals from tech clients.^[1]

Posts about the banks being "out of money" can be traced back to tweets both ironic and sincere in 2023. On March 11th, X^[2] user @aquariums99 tweeted, "Remember: daylight savings ends tonight, and savings sunset Monday morning #thebanksareoutofmoney," marking the earliest known use of the hashtag "#TheBanksAreOutOfMoney." Later that read, X^[3] user @HKracken posted a photo of an ATM near them being out of cash, writing, "Nope, banks are not dispensing cash nor accepting any cash deposits. Told ya'll, get your money out of banks. Run em'!" The post gathered over 2,000 likes in two years.

The hashtag made a reappearance on December 13th, 2024, when X^[4] user @geostrophicflow tweeted, "#BillionDollarBurger #TheBanksAreOutOfMoney" in response to a post about the Trump administration considering "eliminating the top bank watchdogs in Washington." This marks the earliest known joke about a bank run in relation to the Trump administration.

Spread

Jokes encouraging bank runs continued into 2025, with X^[5] user @mrgracemugabe tweeting, "BREAKING: trump just signed an executive order stating that the banks are out of money. “there’s not much left. there’s very little,” the president said," on February 2nd, 2025, gathering over 700 likes in two months. On March 10th, X^[6] user @richard_normal tweeted, "i have just received news that the banks are out of money #TheBanksAreOutOfMoney," gathering over 300 likes in a month.

The Trump administration announced reciprocal tariffs that caused the global stock market to crash on April 2nd, 2025. This prompted more internet users to joke about inciting a bank run. On April 2nd, 2025, X^[7] user @richard_normal tweeted, "we like to joke around on here but you do actually need to pull all of your money out of the bank right now #TheBanksAreOutOfMoney," gathering over 7,000 likes in two days.

On April 3rd, 2025, X^[8] user @RadishHarmers tweeted, "I don't know why people are saying there's no money left in the banks, the banks are out of money, etc. I just checked my bank account and a good sixty or seventy percent of the money is still there," gathering over 6,000 likes in a day.

Also on April 3rd, X^[9] user @CoachLewGrizz posted an image that shows the entrance to a bank with a sign that reads, "Bank Closed, We Ran Out Of Money." The post gathered over 1,200 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References